Living Beyond Our Transformation — http://thegodjourney.com/2012/07/06/living-beyond-our-transformation/

It's now time to think outside the box of what we've always known. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the sovereign Lord. I think that's a profound turning point in somebody's relationship with God. And our hope in starting this was that this would become an ever-expanding conversation. Just two real guys talking about life. That's a nice tagline. I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of The God Journey. Yes, that's right. Brad is back in the studio. I am. The God Journey podcast. I am. You are. You've been running around Europe and all other places in your back. The last trip was Northern Cal, but yeah, I haven't been since I've seen you. Northern Cal's part of Europe, right? Uh, no. No. You may feel like it, but not so much. That was interesting. You know, I got back last Saturday and you know what? I don't have to leave my wife or hit the road again for other than a one-day trip to Canada. I don't have to leave for two and a half months. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. You get an extended stay. We're getting some time together with Sarah and me. So that's going to be wonderful. A little vacation time. Did you enjoy Paris? Oh, best three days of our life. Yes. And nothing to do with Paris. Had everything to do with God messing with me and God messing with Sarah and then bringing that all together for three days of, yeah, best days we've ever had together and every day since has gotten better. So I don't know what to say about that. You're about to explode it. It just, you know, I don't know, you know, because we haven't been together in forever, but God began to take Sarah on a bit of a journey. We've not talked a lot about the details yet. Sarah may someday, but just been some things from Sarah's past that God brought up in some really strange ways. And it for a while looked like, man, I was the focus of it, which wasn't pleasant. And then found out I wasn't, and it went deeper than that. And Sarah's kind of all discovering this once, and I'm in Russia while this is happening. Came back and somehow crawled into what God's doing with my wife and somehow he arranged for a time. I said in a podcast a couple of weeks ago with Dave Coleman that I felt like when I was just a few days short of Paris, Sarah was still in the States coming my way. And I was finishing up a workshop there. I just felt like God said, Paris is my gift to Sarah. And I don't want you to mess it up. Oh! And so I put you on a short leash, did he? But I told him it was a great choice. If you're going to give me a city not to have things I want to do in, Paris would be one of those cities. I'm much more of a countryside guy, but it was three days of just serving her. Just whatever you want. This is God's gift to you. I want to make this special. So how do I fit into what's going on for you instead of how do I get what I'd like to do or want or whatever? And it was just the most incredible time and walking the streets and talking through things in our journey and marriage and lifetime stuff. That was the joy of it. It wasn't Paris. Paris was Paris. Paris was just a location. Paris was a location. Good food, good sights to see, but the real deal was just the conversation that Sarah and I are having and got back and that conversation has just continued and growing. Good for you. Like Sarah says, it feels like everything's new again and I was finishing up last week in Northern California at this camp, which was a bit of a deal. And I was really wanting Sarah to go, but I knew it really wasn't time for her to be around a lot of people wanting to kind of crawl into her life where she's at right now. It's all pretty, not excessively, not endearingly accessible as far as Sarah's concerned. And so she didn't go, but I was meeting some friends on the way back and just wishing that she was all part of that and she finally decided to catch a train and come up to San Luis Obispo and meet me there and I picked her up at the train station coming back from the camp and then we went and spent some time in the Central Coast with people we knew and then drove back through some of our favorite spots from lots of travel. So that was all good. And we've gotten home here and did the fourth, did you do the fourth, did your family's all gone? You're all alone. Yeah, I did. I did a few sparklers with my dogs. So you and Bodie out there with the sparkler and they're illegal here. You didn't have any sparklers. Come on. I had a couple of candles and a couple of sparklers. I didn't know they're illegal. So we've had them. Oh, you know, it'd been illegal for years. The stash. The stash. So you're not illegal and feel more, no, you can buy them there. Absolutely. But you have to blow them up there. I'm no longer, I'm no longer confessing any of this. I don't think law enforcement is a lot. Yeah, I celebrated with our dogs. My family is all over the place. They're strewn all over the planet. My boys are in Europe. My daughter's at camp. My wife is taking care of family stuff and I got the dogs. And you're alone and working hard and you're doing pet duty. Yes. And I don't know about you, but our dogs have never enjoyed the fourth of July like others have. They don't enjoy it? No. I mean, it's like, I mean, they enjoy the barbecue stuff. Yeah. But the loud sounds that really freaked them out. So did you barbecue for them? No. Well, I did have a pizza. Ah. So, yeah. And I shared. I share. I share with my dog, absolutely. So yeah, we had a party of four. Three of them were furry and me. I think most dogs don't enjoy all that loud popping and screaming. I don't. It's sort of like at the end of their world for them. It's crazy. We had an Irish setter growing up and we didn't know what to do. One fourth of July, we put her in the front seat of the car and hoping that just somehow she'd feel secure in there. She ate the front seat and the dash. It was bad. Yeah. Yeah. We had to get a whole new front seat. Yeah. And of all the bright things in Ventura County, they actually have the firework show for Cam Rio at the airport and the dog pound is at the airport. Oh, there you go. Yeah. They always talk about, yeah. Big article in the paper about what to do with your dogs, how to turn the TV on, do things. Nothing. We got one dog that's really troubled by it and one dog that's okay with it. But we're not that close to anything here. So there's not a lot of noise and our neighbors did a lot of stuff. They used to just do it on the mall. Over there. They do it on the mall over there. We can hardly hear it. We can see bits of it. Last night was so foggy we can see the bottom third of the firework display. There you go. And so we thought, this is not worth it. There you go. We were the night before in Moore Park. They do it on the third for some reason. So we were there with the kids and grandkids and enjoying the fireworks there. So that was fun. The fourth of July through the eyes of a child is awesome. It is. Life through the eyes of a child is awesome. It is. By the way. Yeah. They don't see all the stuff we see. What's become of that American ideal. They see these stuff that we can't see. Which I love. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Eyes of wonder. That's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Well, so I had an interesting time at camp last week. I haven't been to camp in, I don't know how long. You were at camp. Summer camp? I was the speaker. That's awesome. I was a camp speaker, which I tend to avoid that kind of thing pretty much. I somehow felt this summer camp. Something I'd ought to buy into. Yeah. It wasn't kids camp. It was family camp. Actually a pretty neat deal. This is a holdover from the Christian Businessmen's deal that they started having this camp, I don't know, 30 years ago or something, where family, this is where the family's chance to all come. And people have been doing this for 30-some-odd years. Kids have grown up. Now they're coming back with their kids. It's like a big family reunion. Everybody knows each other. They've been doing this for years and they rent this campsite, Mission Springs in Scotts Valley. I mean, it's a lovely camp, small, and it's kind of a junior brother to Mount Herman, which is a huge monstrosity over there. But I mean, they take care of everything. All the meals they're having is provided and the family's come and they hit the beach, the swimming pools, volleyball. I get to play about six hours of volleyball and love that. And I haven't played that much volleyball in a long time. It didn't hurt yourself either. They even... No, I'm not injured. I call Sarah every night going, not injured yet. Are you sore? No, not real sore either. But interesting much, the reason I don't do a lot of that is because I don't know that everybody knows what they're getting in for when they come and hear a speaker, especially if they haven't, mostly where I go hang out with people who've read stuff, listened to podcasts, whatever, kind of know where I'm coming from. Not everyone in this group knew where I was coming from, though they'd all been sent a copy of He Loves Me and it started out just a little rugged. It started out with people going, oh, crud, not this heresy, you know, not everybody, but some. Oh, okay. And you know, a little mark on the fire hide. The fact that God loves you, that's a heresy. As extravagantly as he does. People don't mind the thought that he loves us, but really it's fear that makes this life work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can over-emphasize the love deal and make God creepy or a sort of fuzzy or what you're... Therapy. Therapy? That's possible. So the first part of the week, you've got a couple of people that are kind of marking a fire hydrant with me going, you know, don't, you know, just setting my boundaries here. And yet by the end of the week, I mean, people were really, because I just give them enough time, ask questions, struggle, disagree. I don't care. Let's just keep talking. Lark your fire hydrant. Let's find out. Yeah, let's find out what God really is and how do we know that? And the whole thing got down to, again, not just living conceptually with God concepts, but actually knowing Him. And when that gets there, the conversation gets really interesting because then people who feel like, man, I don't have that relationship, but I want it. And I'm convinced scripture offers it. So now people want to engage that. Why do you think people resist that? Because... I mean, it's like, why would you not like that? Well, I think the God I grew up with in Sunday school is a pretty creepy guy. I don't think you really want to know him very closely. I think you want to just keep him at arm's length. Appeased. Enough to get your Get Out of Hell free card. Yeah. But it's scary and he's, you know, be careful with the lies, what you see. And I mean, it's just you got, God, this is like the policeman with the radar gun and he's got to fix everything in you that's wrong. And it's that whole focus on performance. And I think it just kind of, I don't want to know when you hear that God might be loving and might be kind and the only way to know that is to not compare all the scriptures and fight that out, but actually come to know him and experience him inside the work of Christ. And now we're in a different conversation. And by the end of the week, I just, I love by Friday what people are feeding back to me of the things God's done in them, heard this week, hungry for, resonating with. But by Tuesday, I'm ready to go. Hey, think I came to the run game. I might need to go home early. But met some wonderful people. Not camp favorite speaker. Yeah, they even had an even had a geyser game against the youth. Plus fifties with the twenties. Oh, there you go. Geyser game. And we had some we had some geysers were game. So we actually. Geysers in the game. Decisively twice spanked them. We're going to rematch, but the rematch never happened. So it was fun. Do you find that there are people that actually want to hold on to that, you know, kind of bad, unfun image of God? I don't run into people that seem to want to fight for that. Well, I run into people who want to fight for that. I don't know that they want to hold on to it. I think the deal is that's just the way he is. And you're trivializing him. You're cheapening him. If you talk about him being loving and kind and compassionate and, you know, they're afraid it tears down his awesomeness. One small group invited me over to some Q and A. I'll tell you, there's one guy there that must have quoted 60 scriptures, 60 verses in context, big passage, quoting, quoting, quoting all these fear, horrible things about God as kind of a refutation of the things and they've been there one day. They weren't part of the camp. They just came up to visit one day, just to quote scriptures in a small group. And he said, I'm going, dude, stop, what are you doing? I could take every scripture you're giving me and walk it back through contextually, and it doesn't mean what you're saying. It means that you're just boom, boom, boom. One lady in the group later, I thought this is really cool. She sent me there. You know, that guy was quoting all those scriptures. I said, yeah, I just felt like the whole weight of the world was being put on my shoulders again. And I would just feel myself sliding down into this horrible bondage that I've been in all my life and I'm getting out of. And and yet he just he wouldn't listen every time you try and talk a little bit off another set of scriptures and I and I don't have many opportunities anymore to talk with people who because I decide a long time ago, I'm going to spend time with people who are actually seeing these things, helping them live them, not trying to convince people who don't see them that me thinks Jacobson was wise. So when I'm in that kind of conversation, and I know it's not just about me and him, but that was personal. I just said, dude, if that's where you're at, go for it. But I know other people are listening in and it's having impact on them. So you're trying to engage it enough to at least let other people know. I don't see it that way. And I think that's a distortion of scripture. But the guy's just quoting, just quoting and quoting and quoting. But in spite of that, I think people are coming to discover that there is a loving father here, not a warm fuzzy nut. I don't people say, well, you're just going to trivialize God. And if we're talking conceptually, I think we do trivialize God. He is loving. He just nice. He's just kind. But I said the portal to God's love is that we actually get to know him. And when you know him, he retains all his awesomeness. There's nothing unawesome about God. There's nothing that's less amazing about this God who made heaven and earth, who wants to love me and be in my life and walk me through my pains and lead me out into home. Nothing negative about that. But some people freak out a little bit, I guess. You know, it's fascinating. I've been doing this whole whole thing for a Bible project. And I've been looking at the scriptures and summarizing all the books. And it's it's been fascinating to me to see how the people that really knew Jesus and were with him, how important it was to say that we would be people of our of our word and our actions would match that. It's like, I mean, just the total demand for integrity that says, look, if changed heart, there'll be fruit. Yeah. And I think, often times, it's like, well, you guys are trying to bear the fruit of a changed heart without a changed heart. That's tough. Brutal. I mean, that is really tough. And it's like it's it's the fruit of a changed heart is not how you get one. It's the evidence of one. Yeah. And it's like, when you look at the dynamics, like, wait a minute, I don't think you got a fight here. I think it's just a matter of that door is not the entry point. Yeah. That's the outcome point. And it's a glorious outcome. No one's no one's say, Oh, forget it. You know, just single or no, not if you got a changed heart. You won't. But trying to bludgeon someone with all this stuff that they do not yet have the faculties to obey. Yeah, they can't. Their heart is in need of some desperate changing. The way it changes is the love and the kindness. I mean, I saw something that Paul, you don't think of Paul as the love guy. Do you? Well, I do. But I didn't used to. No, I know. But but that's not how he's taught. No, it's not. And it's not how he's discussed. And he's not in any of the Bible. I ever saw as the love guy. And I'm going like, there's not a there's not a single book that doesn't center on that as pretty one. And I'm going like, wow, that's just that was revelatory to me to go like, you know what, that's what I think. And that's not who I was taught that guy thought. Well, I think it's so easy in our sense of shame. And I've been reading one of Brené Brown's books. I remember Brené's thing on Ted dot com. And we've been reading The Gifts of Imperfection, which has been really a wonderful part of Sarah's journey. So we're reading it together. And she talks about all that, how shame causes us to reinterpret everything as a negative. So it's easier for us to and she's not talking about God. It's not a Christian book at all. It's from our academic research. But I think there's a lot of Christian truth that's underpinning that because she's quite a devout believer, I understand. But when you see things through shame and this need to be perfect, you're driven by your fears. And you're driven by how other people perceive you. And I think that whole shame construct when it aims toward God, it's easier to believe that God's really ticked at me for all the stuff I'm messing up. And so if I'm going to get him endeared to me, then I've got to work harder at looking good. And then it just but it overruns itself. We can't, on our best day, be good enough to earn anything from God. So if that's the approach, we're never going to get to that integrity, honoring your word, living that as the fruit of a changed life. God, like what you say, it's got to go back to the change life. If the change life doesn't happen, then externally, I'm still performing. I'm still in this moment, giving you whatever I think you want me to give you. And the next moment, giving something entirely different to someone else because what they want from me is different. And there's no integrity in who we are and the way we live and our life because we're constantly trying to fit into everybody else's expectations instead of being true to what God's doing in us. Well, I also think that, I mean, I don't know about you. I'm I'm getting old enough to actually have some observations of myself. That's strange, huh? Yeah, well, I'm way older than that. That's funny. Way older than that. Way older. Yeah. Well, I recognized, you know, I think out of immaturity, there's a desire and a need to call things almost better than they are just because that's what you hope for. And I think now that I'm just, I don't know, a little older, a little more, I guess, secure, hopefully or something like that, there isn't so much of a need to try to do that. And I think that, you know, in this whole shame management thing, if you place it towards God, it's like, I think sometimes we push people like, you got it, you got a brother, you got it. And it's like, they don't got nothing yet. They can. It's not a performance thing. So not closing the door like, nope, sorry, you don't cut it. It's not like, but no, I don't know that you've locked in with the tractor beam of God's love that if you try to do this too quickly, it's not going to work very well. And it comes off very fraudulent to everybody except the person doing it. I mean, everyone else kind of feels like, man, there's something unreal about this, you know, someone pretending too hard, someone acting more than it. Someone living the fruit of something. The unfortunate thing about the religious performance environment is it's almost like it's it's got too much early adoption on it. It's like you got to, you know, somehow in order to be accepted, it's like, you got to be there already. And it's like, but you're not. And if you're not, then it's like, oh, you don't cut it. It's like, and it's like, I don't, I don't know if that's just what goes on in the individual brain or if that's really the mindset of the community. But you sit there and say, colleague, I just, it doesn't seem to me that Jesus was ever asking for something in a life before it had really in essence, the switch got turned on. Yeah, but it can't be endearing. Maybe maybe it's like little kids trying to mom and dad's clothes. You're like, okay, it'll be kind of cute. Yeah, I think when God sees it, it's probably a whole lot different. You're like, oh, yeah, that's awesome. You want that right grade. That's cute. But I think when it's out of that whole terror and fear as if somehow if I don't perform, he will roast me. That's the unfortunate dynamic. You're just going like, no, where did you get that idea? Yeah. And how is that going to serve you in the long haul? And what does that when you, especially when you start putting that under the people, other people need to be as terrified of God as you are to be right, I don't think anyone's ever as honest. By saying it that way, I think it's all stuff below the surface that they tend towards that going like, no, I'm so afraid that I'll get out of line that I've got to somehow scare myself and keep myself in check here. Yeah. And it's like, you know what seems to me that one of the most important things is to be able to begin to trust the Holy Spirit inside you. How else do you get any guidance? Yeah, one of the things I've noticed in those conversations, I'm really hearing people try and make the fear argument, particularly the without the fear of God, you know, God being awesome. We're not going to be holy. We're going to keep living by our own desires. And I honestly think for them, when I hear them saying that, that's true for them. They don't know anything about God endearing enough that they would want to be like him. So it's their fear of him that helps them try to manage their sin to hold some of their sin at bay and try to be better people. And that I guess that's particularly this week in a number of conversations last week at the camp in a number of conversations. I'm saying going, you really don't know how deeply loved you are or the power of that love. That that seems to be the problem because if I didn't fear him, you don't know the things I would go out and do that. I mean, the entire drive for whatever holiness or performance is in their life comes because I have this terrifying judge that I've got to be accountable before some day. And if I don't have that view, I won't live righteously. So I need that view to keep my sin in check. And my deal is then you just don't know how loved you are. And you don't really know the power of them. I don't know anybody who lives in God's love who doesn't want to be like this guy. He isn't the most endearing presence in the universe. And in fact, it's not just, oh, you got rules. OK, I'm trying to follow your stupid rules. It's I want to be like him and he provides the way for that to happen. You know, again, I don't know that I've got this fully baked. But I think I've seen the law in a different different place as far as recognizing that, you know what, it wasn't given for the transformed heart. That can that can function on the law of liberty and the law of love. But for those that don't know that, for the law breakers, that seems to be who the law was given. It was like, wait a minute, we got some folks who are they kind of are hell bent. OK, well, literally, yeah, well, the law is for them. It is to curb it is to bring some. I mean, so it's like if you're going to live in society, there are some elements that you're just going like, well, yeah, there are the imposition from outside. It's not the way that transformation happens. No. And it's not that I've got to now apply that on on on everybody. It's not if if you're if you're set to be a law breaker. Well, there's some laws that got you don't get to break everyone. Hello. Yeah. And there's got to be consequences for breaking laws. So you'll stop and and and don't our laws punish the people most who don't need them. And I think how easy our tax system would be if we trust that everybody's going to pay their fair share and turn it in. But we don't. So we have this endless record keeping kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Nobody cheats anything. And those are all really for people who want to cheat. And we've got to do. I mean, the people who wouldn't cheat have got to jump through 100 hoops because that the hoops are all there for those who will and want to. And we'll try and do it every way they can. And that's what I find onerous. I don't. I do not disagree. I do not disagree. But at the same time, I know I don't know. I think it's so wild when you just like, you know what? It's one thing if you're dealing with a bunch of folks who are God lovers and are going down that road and they're all signed up and saying, yep, it's a whole nother deal when you're going like, well, how do you then make it work when you're not? How does that work? How do you function together in a in a society that says, guess what? There's some folks that don't want this at all. But how are we going to live together? It's like, that's the that that is the weird dynamics. Like, you know what, that is the world we live in. No, in a fallen age, you've got to have all that stuff. Yeah. And so it's like, well, you know, as opposed to just, well, just chuck it all. I kind of recognize, no, you unfortunately can't. But in the midst of all of that, there is a life giving way. And I think it's the unfortunate dynamic is when in the Christian community, you kind of confuse those and I started using the law on people that it's not like they don't know, I don't know that they need that. That's not the motivator. And the more you do that, it's the more like throwing a dirt plot in a, in a, in a, you know, a pool of, you know, clear water. So why are you doing that? That's not helpful. Not at all. Get that out of there. I was reading Galatians just happened to coincide with reading Galatians through July 4th, which is a great time. We're celebrating freedom. My good. Come on, baby. Nothing like Galatians, but I was reading this. Yeah, bring it on. This is in the message. Answer this question. Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves? Does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God. Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ, not persons who put their trust in the law, are like Abraham? Children of faith. It was all laid out beforehand in the Scriptures that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. And I love that he comes to the point of saying, well, really, how does this stuff happen? Are you good enough to make yourself better for God? Or is it by believing in God's ability to set things right in you that he's able to set things right in you? Is it able to get to that place where I'm not doing this stuff for God? God's doing these things in me. And that helps get through, particularly the painful bits of process. I don't think all God's freedom necessarily shows up as whoopee ding, throw on a, you know, close and let's go have a parade. Whoopee ding. I mean, the things God's shifting in my life at the moment, the things God's shifting in Sarah's life at the moment, these are very, very painful things. And if you're in the middle of thinking, I have to change this. Well, forget it, I'm just so discouraging. But if God whoopee dinged me, my trusting him to make things right is the way things are made right, not by trusting in law and laws ultimately of trust in human performance, what I have to do to make it better. Well, isn't it, I mean, don't you think it would be extraordinary as far as just if you were there for the transition of Old Testament, God's not on the inside. He's not dwelling in the indwelling Holy Spirit, change nature on the inside. Okay? Then all of a sudden, boom, he comes. I like the boom, boom, boom. I like the boom. He comes and now God is in his temple, which is not the building, it's the person. And the difference, don't you think that would be absolutely extraordinary? Wasn't that Pentecost? Exactly. Yeah, it was. And it's like, you look at that and it's like, okay, we've grown up in this whole thing and it sort of takes that for granted. And you don't recognize the difference to someone that would have gone like, wait a minute, there was a time at which, uh-uh, we had nothing on the inside. We had nothing on the inside. Now I've got the spirit on the inside and oh, whoopee ding, I mean, that's different. I kind of feel like, you know what? For all the folks who are striving, you end up going like, well, is God in his temple? If he is, I think he knows how to make the thing work. If I'll let him. Yeah, but, and here's the, and I got this letter after we did the recent one on some church issues in Temple and Little Kids book we made some fun of and I get that thing from people. You know what? You and Brad are just too light on the church. You got that organized religious thing. You got needs of you. That thing actually distracts and keeps people from relation. Oh, we gotta blast it? Yeah, and I would say, you know what? There's people there God loves and I don't think all systems are as bad as the system you came out of and the system that you were born. I think there are some horrible systems out there that really hurt people. But I think one of the things that Christianity as a religion by and large kind of settled in when I was young was salvation is a get out of health free card and you've got to pray a sinner's prayer, you go forward, you get baptized, you do it. You go through these hoops and then you're assigned status as a Christian and I don't think for me, particularly when I was really, really young, I didn't catch him living in me other than that was a theological abstract I was supposed to believe in. But it wasn't a reality and it wasn't until that became a reality, God in me. So I'm having my own little old covenant, new covenant moment. I was pretty young. I was probably 12 or 13 when that kind of trend. But it was now more than just here's God made the rules, follow the rules and I was a good rule follower, even as a little kid. Look at my gold chart. I got my gold stars all across my chart. But to where God wanted to live in me, God wanted to communicate with me. God wanted to have a relationship with me. And I think unfortunately, because we've kind of made the sinner's prayer, the going forward, the raising your hand, you're now a believer, your sins are forgiven. We've made that more of a process of human activity rather than salvation is to know him and the one whom you sent as Jesus defines it in John 17. The salvation is really about coming into a relationship with God, where God lives in us and we live in him. I think that's gotten left out. So I think there are a lot of people who are intellectually saved, who don't have a sense of God present with them. And this relationship that you're talking about that you and I are so excited about, they don't even know what that is. Yeah, dog whistle frequency is like, what are you talking about? You know what? In the abstract, I mean, you believe I have a relationship with God because I did these things, but it's more than that. See, I think that's the whole, the real challenge is it's not like, well, gee, are you part of the initiated? It's not that at all. It's a matter of, you know what? There are things that the human spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit can do that the smartest dude out there cannot. My flesh cannot accomplish what the Holy Spirit can. I have hit the wall and figured that out. I love the difference. I love the fact that, no, I cannot do that, but he can and somehow he's living in me. Do I deserve it? No, I'm really glad that that's not what that's about. Yeah, do I understand all of it? No, I really don't. I mean, and I really love the fact that I don't feel like I have to and yet I'm a pretty smart guy. So it's not like I'm jettisoning something. You're just going like, you know what? I love the fact that there's a God who's bigger, smarter, faster, better, all those things and he longs to be in a relationship with me. Yeah, and I'm gonna live in whatever glimpse of him he gives me today. I don't have to figure out the whole deal. I don't have to know how the end of the world is gonna happen. I don't have to know the fine dividing line between sovereignty and free will. Today I wake up, I get to know him, listen to him and where he moves me, where he gives me glimpse, where he puts people in my life to love. I just get to respond to what he's giving today instead of, I think the whole religious thing for me was I'm always trying to get something from God. I'm trying to get a ministry or get a healing or get wisdom or get, get, get, get, get, get. I like just saying, okay, God, what are you giving today? What is it that you're revealing? How do I walk inside what you're unfolding for me today? And that becomes the freedom to not have to wrap my head around the whole picture. Cause I don't think there's any day I wrap my head around the whole picture. See, but yes, absolutely. And I think the dynamic is how many real relationships do you have that are fun or even fruitful where the focus is get, get, get, get, get, get? I would answer none. Yeah. So if I'm wanting to have a relationship with God, I don't think he's a system to work. I don't think he's a principle to master. I think he's someone to know. And it's like, ooh, that's a different dynamic. Plus the whole getting thing is I know what's best for me and I just need to get God to deliver the goods. It really starts with our own agenda. So I need this to happen, that to happen, this person to die, you know, whatever it is that we're praying for or doing. It's, it really goes, you know what? That's still me trying to get God on my page. And if you're trying to grow in the love and trust of the Father of Jesus Christ. That's not the road. When you're trying to get him on your agenda, you're going to be disappointed every day. Every day, he's not going to do the things you think he should do. But he is gonna do the things he knows are best to do in your life and in the people around you. And it's- Which is to frustrate that one. Which is to relax enough to frustrate what one? The, I'm gonna work God. Yeah. It's no, you're not. Oh. And the reality is, and why would you ever? You know, God getting my agenda out of my hands was probably a five or 10 year process. So I understand people are still, yeah, but I think if God really loved me, he would do X, Y, or Z. I understand the angst people have, and that may be a long time learning. But now when I hear that stuff about, oh yeah, trying to get God to do what I want, it's laughable internally. I'm going, oh man, that's so stupid. God knows best about everything. And so why wouldn't I be trusting that? But again, I think that's part of that process learning to learn sign. But again, you can't, you don't trust anyone that you're not convinced they really have your best interest at heart. Yep. You just don't. And shouldn't. Yeah. Yep. I agree. And I think unfortunately, when you got the God who carries a big stick, kind of God. Yeah. That's not necessarily a guy I am going to naturally feel able to trust. I think I'll have some issues. You know? Yeah. And so it's like, that's the unfortunate residue. If that's the image of God that you've been given so as to affect your behavior, as opposed to go with a transformed heart, we're going to just transform your behavior. The heart will catch up sometime. I don't know the heart ever does. No. I think that's the biggest problem. It's like, you know what? You try to make this happen without him? Talk about getting lost. And what's scary is some of us can actually pretend for a time, two, three weeks to. Some of us. We can actually make ourselves better for a season and think, well, that's the real me. If I could just do that all the time. Yeah. But then that kind of collapses of its own weight and then we feel like failures and we're driven back in the shame thing again instead of saying, you know what? Maybe I'm living beyond my transformation and maybe that isn't really brilliant. Maybe I need to live inside the transformation. That's a weird phrase. Living beyond my transformation. No, I think there's some brilliance. I just, that is, those words have been put together for the first time in my brain and I'm beholding them. Maybe in all human history. I'm beholding them for a moment. Living beyond my transformation. No, I think that that's unfortunately what religion sort of demands of you. It does. That's the expectations and the fulfillment of them by performance instead of, I'm in a process with God and I wanna live inside what he's doing in me today. Does that put me in a place to live the way I wish I could? Someone wrote me this week about that Roman Seven passage about Paul. The evil thing I don't wanna do, I do. And the good thing I don't wanna do, I don't do. And that, do you think it's something about the past Paul or present Paul? Cause I think it's past Paul and she'd been taught it was past Paul. I'm saying, you know what? I think that's current. I think that's true of my life. There are times I'm in situations going, I'm not living here the way I want to. I really wish I could live differently here. I don't know how to live differently here. I've gotta come back to, okay, God, how do you shape me to live differently there? And when is that gonna happen? And instead of just, no, I should make myself do whatever thing I think I should do. I just should do it. And I'm a pretty good performer and I struggle with this. So I can't imagine people who are not good performers find that stuff to be brutal. It really is a whole picture of God conquering my heart and bringing areas of me into life giving submission to him. And when that happens, it's glorious. Is that true in every area of my life? Not here. Not yet. Not yet. But I also go, not finished. Yeah. And I've somehow tales of a former perfectionist. I'm okay with that. Yeah, I think that's the most important message people need to hear is to somehow be comfortable in the process of God shaping you instead of, I wish I was further than I was. I've gotta try and pretend I'm farther than I am. To really be, this is a process. He is the author and finisher of faith. If he's not the one creating trust in us, then for us, it's just a matter of trying to act better and God didn't need us to be actors for him. So. Well, I don't think you're really very good at faking yourself out either. It's like, I think when we, it's wonderful to go, wow, God, how did that get changed? I love those moments in my life where you're just going, like, wait a minute, that's not me. That's not how I normally behave. I don't normally get really hacked off there. And I was in something a little different. And you just end up going, like, wow, I don't, I'm not sure when you snuck that in. I mean, I do try to participate with God. It's not like I'm absent from my transformation. No, absolutely not. But I'm not in charge of it completely. And God and me do not have the same priority list. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but. That's why I gave up my agenda a long time ago. Yeah, so he's like, but Lord, I was really praying about this, but you're doing that. What's the deal? And he ended up going like, you know what? I think I'm gonna take his list and I think I'm gonna enjoy the fact that I'm not done yet and he's not doing everything yet. Yeah, and I don't know that I take up his list because I'm not that bright. I just threw mine away. I rarely start a day now with, okay, God, here's what I hope you'll do. I more start my day now with, okay, God, what are you doing today? And how do I just follow you? And in the following of you, I find my life transforming. I look back at things that I would only know that I was conscious of how they were being changed at the moment. I just got to see that I was in a circumstance like I had been before and not responding in the same way. And responding in a way I more wished I had responded in times past. And that I go, man, that's how the fruit of loving God and living inside his love makes a difference over time. It does transform us. Yeah, and the lady that wrote to you saying, oh, you guys too easy on the church or the system is kind of like, well, you know what? If you've grown up in one of those environments that's sort of demanding the whole fruit check before the changed heart check. Yeah, that is really hard. Especially if they're not even helping with the changed heart check. Just on the other side or measuring fruit every day. And there are folks that just seem to have gone like, well, whatever it is that they got, they didn't get this part. Nobody stopped and said, well, you know, don't you need this part? I mean, I love in the book of Acts, there's different moments where Paul, you know, he sees somebody like, you know what? Did you guys get the Holy Spirit on this one? The Holy Who? I mean, that is such a cool part in this journey. It's like, we never even heard of that. What's that? Yeah. And just go like, They can be helpful. He's a little bad. But I mean, how cool is it? The Pharisee of Pharisees going like, dude, if there's anybody that knows how to do this without oil, he did. Yeah, and his, to the extreme, okay? Yeah. And what an incredible deal to watch the transformation, just in his life of going like, no way. You really knew it to the ultimate extreme this way. That was sort of everything about God without him, to the point that he's got to say, hey, Saul, why are you persecuting me? That's got to be just the worst moment on the planet. You know it's God and you're going like, oh no. It's the wrong God, that's a problem. Yeah. And that's why Paul's so adamant, I think, and he just keeps visiting it in various letters. There's nothing, when you live in this transformation, there's nothing to boast about. You don't get to go back and say, I'm doing this Jesus thing incredibly well. I just sound so, it sounds that funny. Keep it traveling with us on the good journey. You can be part of the conversation by visiting our website, thegodjourney.com.